United-Chase Rift Creates Opportunities for Other Credit Card Partnerships

Discourse between United Airlines and its co-branded credit card partner Chase may be seeding the ground for future loyalty opportunities at the carrier.

As Skift’s Brian Sumers reported last week, the Chicago-based airline is deep in the process of renegotiating its contract with Chase, the bank that manages all of the carrier’s co-branded credit cards. United wants a better deal like Delta has with American Express. Chase may not be willing to budge.

Ultimately, the scenario that may shake out could be similar to the model employed at American. That carrier has a multi-level agreement with both Barclays and Citi for a wide spectrum of credit card products. For consumers, this means that it will be easier to reap the benefits of either bank and all of the ancillary services that each affords — some Mastercard products, for example, have unique hotel benefits while Amex is well known for its insurance policies. Competition breeds innovation.

— Grant Martin, Business of Loyalty Editor

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Skift Business of Loyalty Editor Grant Martin [gm@skift.com] curates the Skift Business of Loyalty newsletter. During the day, he also works in Product at TripActions. Skift emails the newsletter every Monday.